


The Witching Hour

by rendawnie



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Magic, Baby witch San, Crushes, Flirting, Fluff, Getting to Know Each Other, Humor, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Spells & Enchantments, Wicca, Witch Yeosang, Witches, a few swears idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 14:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18033857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendawnie/pseuds/rendawnie
Summary: San's botched love spell may just have worked out better than expected.





	The Witching Hour

_So close._

Yeosang was _so. Close._

He hadn’t slept in nearly three days, thanks to exams. He’d been living on nothing but coffee and dreams, and now it was finally done and he could get the well-deserved rest he’d been missing, and he was so close to drifting away to dreamland, and then--

With a piercing, loud, seemingly neverending _beeeeeeeeeeeep_ , the smoke alarm went off just outside his room, in the hallway of the dorms.

Yeosang groaned, flipping over and smashing his pillow over his face. He was willing to die in a potential fire at this point, honestly. That’d grant him a nice, extra long nap.

He waited what could have been ten seconds, or maybe an eternity, for the alarm to cease its incessant wailing. It was midnight on a Friday, and there was no actual reason why the building should be burning down. It had to be a mistake, the alarm tripped by accident. Maybe a microwaved cup of noodles gone bad, Yeosang tried to convince himself. He _needed_ to believe that, because he _desperately_ needed to go the fuck to bed.

Five more seconds went by, before there was an abrupt pounding at his door.

“Yeosang! Get up, dude. Building’s being evacuated.”

Yeosang liked his R.A. a lot, generally speaking. Seonghwa was kind and not too strict. He would even join the younger students he supervised at parties from time to time, and he was damn near unbeatable at any drinking game the over-excited freshmen tried to throw his way.

Yeosang did not like Seonghwa very much right now at -- he sighed and checked his phone in the near-dark of his dorm room -- seven past midnight on a Friday, after he hadn’t slept in nearly three days.

Tossing his phone onto the mattress beside him, Yeosang stared at the ceiling and tried to tune out the beeping. “Just. Leave me here to die,” he muttered, not loud enough for Seonghwa to have heard, but he was gone anyway, continuing down the hallway and knocking on each door in turn. Always doing his job, Seonghwa.

When another minute or so had ticked away, and it was becoming more and more obvious that this waking nightmare was not going to end anytime soon, Yeosang gave up. He forced himself upright in bed, rubbing at his eyes belligerently. He found two shoes nearby, not bothering to check and see if they actually matched one another. Yeosang pulled a hoodie over his bedhead, grabbed his phone, and made his way over to the door of his room.

Yunho, his roommate, wasn’t home. He’d gone out to some party earlier in the evening, like most university students do on a Friday night. Fleetingly, Yeosang wished he’d agreed to tag along when Yunho invited him, just so he could have avoided this whole situation, but it was probably better this way. Yeosang was positive that, in his current condition, it would only have taken half a watered down drink (maybe less) for him to curl up on the nearest piece of furniture and pass out for several hours. Better that he did that at home, really.

The hallway was full, now, so it appeared that Yeosang wasn’t the only one willing to forgo a social life in favor of good, old fashioned rest. Students filed down the hall and down the stairs in near silence, most of them having been roused just as suddenly, leaving them in the same condition as Yeosang. He didn’t see any of his friends, which made sense. They never missed a chance to party.

Once it was Yeosang’s turn to spill out the heavy double doors that let students in and out of the dorms all day (and night), the hideous beeping got much quieter. Yeosang was grateful. He glanced around the courtyard, observing the small clumps of people that had formed on the lawn. Some were standing around, chatting, some had just laid down right there on the grass and were trying to go back to sleep, and some were…

Yeosang’s eyes landed on a single, black-hoodie-bundled figure crouching off to one side, just a little further away from the building than anyone else. He felt the corners of his mouth turn down into a small frown. Choi San was almost never without a friend or two in tow. Sure, he was sort of a weird guy, but it was a _good_ weird. He was bubbly, and happy nearly all the time. He was on the dance team with Yeosang, and Yeosang could personally (and painfully, on an emotional level. On a… hot… level…) vouch for San’s copious performance skills and talent. San was so overwhelmingly friendly, actually, that their dance coach hadn’t even had the heart to tell him that his standard three nails of black polish on each hand weren’t exactly in keeping with the style of their routines and choreography, and ended up just letting him keep the adornment on his fingers whenever he wanted.

Yeosang shoved his hands in the pouch of his own hoodie, shuffling across the soft, wet grass and over to San, who appeared to be staring at something cradled in his palms, and concentrating very hard. Honestly, Yeosang was probably too tired for whatever this was going to be, he _definitely_ was, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He always felt just a little bit drawn to San. Like magic.

“Hey,” Yeosang called out as he approached, not too loudly. When San glanced up and gave Yeosang a dimpled smile, Yeosang tried his best to return it, continuing towards him. “Where’s, uh… um…” he trailed off, his mind going blank from vague exhaustion.

San chuckled, the sound light and airy to Yeosang’s ears. “Wooyoung?” he provided, naming his roommate.

Yeosang came to a pause a respectable distance away. A friendly distance. “Right. Wooyoung.”

San glanced around the courtyard, as if looking for the roommate in question, then his eyes focused back on Yeosang. “Probably at whatever party Yunho’s at,” he said reasonably.

Yeosang nodded, watching as San stuffed whatever he’d been holding between his hands in his own hoodie pocket. He didn’t ask. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go down that path. Not at past midnight on a Friday with the smoke alarm of his dorm building blaring faintly in the background. He felt his legs wobble a little underneath him, and lowered himself onto the grass with a soft grunt. San followed automatically, sitting himself down the rest of the way with his eyes trained on the building. When he turned back to Yeosang, he looked sheepish. “Hope they figure that out soon,” San murmured, and he was just bad enough at hiding his guilt for Yeosang to notice.

With one eyebrow perked up, Yeosang studied San. He was drowning in that black hoodie, tufts of red and black hair peeking out and flopping into his face. He looked tired, just like Yeosang. Normal college kid stuff. But also…

Yeosang thought he could definitely smell a tinge of something fiery, clinging to San’s clothes. Almost like…

“Oh, my god. What did you do?” Yeosang questioned, unable to keep a small snicker from following the words out of his mouth.

It made San laugh too, although his was a bit less enthusiastic. It still sounded nice, Yeosang thought.

Slowly, San pulled one hand out of his hoodie, and when Yeosang looked down, San was clutching a fistful of what looked like burnt flower petals, rose petals, maybe, in his hand, that sheepish smile back on his face. Yeosang’s brow furrowed, and he dragged his eyes back up to meet San’s again.

San managed to both sigh and frown at once, averting his eyes from Yeosang’s tired gaze. “So, um, I was doing this love spell, and…” he started, and then he didn’t finish, and when Yeosang checked, San’s eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth set in a hard line. Like he was waiting for Yeosang to make fun of him, to call him an idiot, to do anything besides what he actually did, by way of response.

That one eyebrow that Yeosang could never control when something intrigued him quirked up again. He could feel it. Behind them, the smoke alarm finally went quiet inside the dorm building, but neither of them really noticed.

“...And…?” Yeosang prodded gently.

San let out the breath Yeosang guessed he’d been holding in a quick _puff_ , a slight blush dusting his cheeks, now. It looked good on him, Yeosang thought.

“...And I was supposed to singe six rose petals in six candles, two times each, and--”

Yeosang groaned. “And you didn’t even bother to open a window, did you,” he said matter-of-factly.

San matched his groan. “It didn’t occur to me! I was, like… _really_ focused on the spell, okay?”

When Yeosang didn’t reply right away, just smiled bemusedly and glanced over at the students starting to get up and make their way back into the building slowly, San tried again. “Why aren’t you laughing at me?” He sounded timid, and that was one thing Yeosang had never experienced before, from San. He only knew confident San. Sweet, sure, but always, _always_ confident in himself. The uncertainty in his voice now made Yeosang glance over at him.

“Why would I?” Yeosang asked simply.

San’s next giggle was a bit strangled, if Yeosang was being honest about it. He picked at a loose string on his hoodie nervously. “I mean. Because? Because it’s weird, right? Spells? Being into witchy shit?”

Yeosang bit his lip to stop his smile getting too wide, leaning back on his palms and looking up at the moon, just peeking out from behind clouds above them. “Not really, San. It’s whatever you’re into. It’s fine.”

Both of them were quiet for a moment, and when San spoke again, it was still soft, but less unsure. Yeosang was glad.

“I’m sorry if I woke you.”

Yeosang chuckled, shaking his head a bit. “Nah, I wasn’t quite asleep yet.”

They were the only ones left in the courtyard, now. Seonghwa was standing by the door waiting for them, one hand on his hip like the true mom he was, squinting hard in Yeosang’s direction. Yeosang trained his gaze on the resident advisor, moving his shoulders in an almost imperceptible shrug and waving Seonghwa off discreetly. He could practically hear the older boy’s beleaguered sigh across the courtyard, but Seonghwa didn’t press the issue. He just rolled his eyes in a manner that seemed entirely overdramatic to Yeosang and went inside, leaving he and San to their shared weirdness.

Yeosang didn’t mind. He felt more awake, now, although it was still a tired-awake. He didn’t feel like going to sleep, anymore, at least. Not yet. He chewed on his bottom lip, thinking, until San’s voice sounded next to him, again. San wasn’t big on silence, it seemed.

“Shouldn’t we be getting back inside?”

Probably, Yeosang thought. Probably, they should.

“Do you need any help cleaning up your mess?” Yeosang asked, getting to his feet and offering San a hand up. San took it quickly, and Yeosang attempted to ignore the tingling spark he felt when their fingers brushed together. San grinned at him, those damn dimples back in place again.

“How do you know I made a mess?” he quipped lightly, tilting his head to one side and _really_ shining on the cute, now. Yeosang was starting to feel increasingly compromised, and he wasn’t sure he minded at all.

He licked his lips, turning on his heel and starting a slow walk back to the dorms. “Well, I’m guessing the rest of the spell went something like… bury the burnt rose petals in dirt, and say some silly words, right?” he surmised. San didn’t answer, which was answer enough for Yeosang. “So now we’ve got… burnt flowers… dirt _somewhere,_ a triggered smoke alarm causing a panicked exit, and… a mess, I presume,” Yeosang concluded as they went inside and up the stairs, San leading the way now and Yeosang trying not to be too terribly obvious about the way he was mildly lagging behind, his body still tired but his brain working overtime, now.

When they reached their floor, the hallway was empty again. It wasn’t early enough for the partiers to be back home, and too late for the homebodies to be awake, leaving Yeosang and San caught in the quiet middle. It was nice, Yeosang thought as he watched San fiddle with his keys, fitting the right one into the lock after a moment. San was nice.

The minute San had gotten the door open, it became glaringly obvious that Yeosang had been right. Not only was there A Mess™, but it seemed that San’s witch tendencies were threatening to encroach onto the entire dorm room, swallowing up almost every sign of Wooyoung, completely. There was a small herb garden on the kitchen counter, books stacked haphazardly in every corner, and the whole place smelled like patchouli. _Hardcore patchouli,_  with a side of extreme smoked petals _._ Yeosang took all of it in silently, and then he noticed what had to be Wooyoung’s Shawn Mendes poster fitted into one small, unoccupied space on the wall, and he couldn’t help giggling.

San’s eyes followed his as he hopped over piles on the floor to get to the window and open it, finally, and when he saw the source of Yeosang’s amusement, he rolled those eyes, giving Yeosang an uninspired slap on the arm as a rebuttal when he’d made it back across the living room. “Shut up. Wooyoung doesn’t mind, I swear. As long as I let him keep his altar to the Almighty Shawn, I get to keep my stuff.”

That made Yeosang let out a genuine laugh. Not only was San nice, and cute, but he was funny. Yeosang liked funny. He was still laughing when he yanked his hoodie over his head, tossing it onto San’s couch next to, for reasons unknown, an empty, old-fashioned birdcage. Yeosang wasn’t going to ask. Not now.

He was just about to figure out where San kept his broom, and trash bags, when Yeosang noticed that San was staring at him, a look of surprise on his face. Immediately, Yeosang felt shy, blushing and crossing his arms over himself in automatic defense. He was still working on that tendency. It was going about as well as could be expected. “What?” he managed to stutter out, focusing on San’s small athame collection spread across the coffee table, an assortment that would almost definitely get him expelled, if anyone found out about it.

“You’re… your necklace,” San murmured, taking a few steps forward and closing the distance between them.

 _Oh._ Yeosang hadn’t even thought about that before stripping his hoodie off, leaving him in just a t-shirt paired with his pajama pants.

San reached out one hand, slipping Yeosang’s pendant onto his palm so he could examine it. Yeosang usually kept it hidden safely under his clothing, but he was _tired,_ and San was being _San,_ and he’d gotten careless. And now here they were.

“Triple Goddess…” San said next, his voice soft, almost reverent. Yeosang tried not to tremble when San’s fingers brushed across his collarbone as he turned the pendant over and back again, before he blinked up at Yeosang curiously.

“Yeah,” Yeosang replied, training his voice to go as nonchalant as he possibly could. “I. Y’know. I dabble.”

It was pretty much a total lie. “Dabbling” in witchery generally didn’t last one’s entire formative years and beyond. It was a lie, and San seemed to know it. He smiled gently, knowingly, at Yeosang, and holy _shit,_ he was so close and Yeosang was close to just kissing him, maybe, and--

San stepped back, that little smile still on his face, and nodded towards the short hallway leading to the bedrooms. “Broom’s in that closet,” he said simply, letting go of Yeosang’s pendant and turning away to find the trash bags.

Cleaning up the aftermath of San’s experiment only took half a trash bag and twenty minutes. Yeosang wished it would have taken more effort. More time. He wished it would have given him a reason to stay.

Thankfully, it seemed San agreed.

“Want a beer or something?” he questioned, after the broom was put away and his front room had been returned to a semi-spotless state. Yeosang’s eyes floated up to a clock hung on the wall. It was only forty minutes past twelve in the morning, and it was a Friday. Sure, he needed to sleep, but that could wait. Maybe… maybe this, whatever it was, couldn’t.

“Okay,” Yeosang decided, and he sat on San’s couch while the younger boy rummaged around in the fridge and got them two drinks, handing one off to Yeosang before he plopped down onto the couch next to him. They were quiet for a minute or two, sipping their beers, until Yeosang noticed the book sitting on the coffee table.

“So--” San started.

“Is this the book you got the spell out of?” Yeosang asked at the same time, a bit incredulously and a lot fondly, and then they both giggled nervously, trailing off into silence again.

“Yeah,” San admitted, his smile turning embarrassed one more time. Yeosang was kind of mad about that, actually. No one should be allowed to be so cute. Ever. It was just unfair.

“I picked it up at the store I like to get my supplies at the other day,” he continued a moment later. “It seemed… cool. I don’t know, I’m new,” San whined, covering his face with his hands.

Yeosang watched him for a second or two, because if San couldn’t see him through his fingers, he was allowed to just sort of stare at him in wonder. Get it out of his system for a minute. When he’d gathered his wits again, as much as he was capable of, Yeosang picked the book up, flipping through it mindlessly. “Which store?”

“The one on the edge of campus,” San provided. “Practical Magick.” He laughed when he realized Yeosang had said the words out loud along with him. “You know it?”

Yeosang nodded, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the horrendous, useless “spells” the book contained. “Yeah, my friend Hongjoong works there. They keep this book out for the hobbyists,” Yeosang snorted, and San let out a loud groan.

“Well, it might have been nice to have someone go along with me to tell me these things!” San protested futilely.

Yeosang didn’t even glance up from the drivel on the pages in front of him as he replied. “I’ll take you next time,” he muttered under his breath, barely realizing the words were falling from his lips. When San didn’t reply right away, Yeosang raised his eyes to find out why.

San was just watching him again, but this time, the look on his face was less amazed. It was more… more…

“What, like a date?” San asked playfully, eyes sparkling in the dim light of the living room.

Yeosang was pretty sure his answering swallow could be heard somewhere in the depths of outer space.

The silence hung between them while Yeosang considered his reply. He wasn’t _really_ considering it, truth be told. He would take San on a date anytime, anywhere. He’d decided that back down in the courtyard, as they sat together looking at the sky and waiting for the alarm to stop screaming at them.

Finally, after another long sip off his beer for a bit of liquid courage, Yeosang set the bottle on the table, along with San’s ridiculous book. He turned his body ever so slightly on the couch, just enough for their knees to knock together lightly. Yeosang felt the same tingles as he had when their fingers brushed against each other’s.

“Yeah,” he said when another moment had passed. “Like a date.” Yeosang paused. "Just... maybe after I've had a good night's sleep, yeah? It's been a  _week_ ," he admitted with a chuckle.

San’s dimples deepened. “I accept.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally writing this as a oneshot, but if anyone likes it, I may continue? Let me know :) 
> 
> Tumblr: @ateezastrology


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